ACLU plans to file a lawsuit in the Mayor Ardis Twitter parody case

PEORIA — The Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union came to the aid of the man behind the parody Twitter account that lampooned Mayor Jim Ardis, said one official Tuesday.

And it appears the civil rights group is on the cusp of filing a lawsuit against City Hall and possibly the mayor, alleging the First and Fourth Amendment rights of Jon Daniel were violated by the police during their investigation and a subsequent raid of a West Bluff house that led to another occupant being arrested on marijuana charges.

"Political parody, according to some estimates, is at least 2,400 years old, dating back to the Greek dramatist Aristophanes’ critiques of Athenian strategy in the Peloponnesian War,” said ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka. “We believe that what Mr, Daniel did is well within the tradition of parody and he should never have been submitted to a police raid as a result of that activity.”

Yohnka said the ACLU represents Daniel and that a lawsuit was likely to be filed “soon,” adding the organization was “very comfortable” that Daniel’s activity, while vulgar, was legally protected.

“We hope this action will send a strong signal to all that wrongful use of the police power to suppress protected speech, even when it is critical or makes fun of public officials is an abuse of power and is not acceptable,” he said.

For weeks, rumors have flown about the group getting involved. Yohnka confirmed Tuesday that the ACLU first got involved in late April when they contacted Peoria police and State’s Attorney Jerry Brady, demanding that the cellphones, computers, and other electronic items seized during an April 15 raid be returned.

On Tuesday, Yohnka said all those items had been returned to the occupants in the home.

But the organization was still “very concerned about the larger issue” of the police clamping down on protected speech. He said he could find no other example throughout the nation where a person’s home was raided due to a parody Twitter account. Parodies, the spokesman said, were part of a time-honored tradition in the United States dating back to the colonial days.

“It is a form of speech that enjoys a high level of protection under the First Amendment. Many elected officials, professional athletes, actors and celebrities are subjects of parody accounts on social media but this is the first instance, to our knowledge, in which a public official called on the power of the police to target those who author such accounts,” he said.

The April 15 raid garnered national attention both on social media and in other media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. In nearly all cases, the actions of the city were derided by journalists and others who believed the raid on the house was heavy-handed.

Ardis has consistently maintained he contacted the police in mid-March, pointing out the Twitter account, which had only about 50 followers. He told police he would prosecute and then has said he largely stayed out of the fray as the police investigated, using multiple search warrants to gain information from Twitter, Google and Comcast about the identities of the account owners.

By the time the house was raided on April 15, the account had already been shut down by Twitter. Another occupant, Jacob Elliott, 36, has been charged with felony possession of marijuana as a result of drugs being found when police raided the home. His case is set for a preliminary hearing later this week.